INVESTORS' DREAM: SCHMIDT CASHES IN

Published: April 10, 1988

To understand why some investors have been turning to baseball cards, consider that a 1973 Topps Mike Schmidt, which cost about a penny in 1973, has recently sold for as much as $170, an increase of well over 1 million percent in just 15 years.

To put it another way, anybody who had the foresight to make a modest investment of just $10,000 in the Schmidt rookie card in 1973, would, theoretically, have a collection worth $170 million today.

There is, to be sure, a catch. To have pulled off such a coup, the investor would have had to buy 1 million Schmidt cards at a penny apiece, something that would have been impossible even for a canny judge of baseball talent who knew in 1973 that Schmidt would become a superstar. For although producers don't reveal annual production figures, it is known that nowhere near a million card sets were distributed in 1973. And if there had been that many, the 1973 Schmidt would undoubtedly fetch far less than $170 today.

Moreover, as its recent price might suggest, the 1973 Schmidt was in especially short supply. It was printed as part of a scarce, high-numbered, late-season release at a time when Topps issued its annual sets in segments throughout the season. The very next year Topps began issuing its full sets in January, a practice adopted by Fleer and Donruss when they entered the industry in 1981 and by the new Score series this year. As a result, there are no longer any scarce, late-season releases.

Since there may actually be more than 5 million cards printed for each 1988 player, it seems highly unlikely that this year's rookie cards can match the Schmidt's record of price appreciation.

And for all its relative scarcity, it would also seem unlikely that the value of the 1973 Schmidt can keep on increasing over the next 15 years at the same rate it did over the last 15. If it does, in the year 2003 a single card will be worth $2.9 million.